For the Sooke show, all 3 of each of our submissions were accepted. Because the jurors change every year, and it’s not a themed show, you never know if your work will be accepted. I’ve had none, one, two and now all of my pieces accepted over the years. This year I will be exhibiting 3 portrait sculptures and Andrew chose 3 beautiful portrait drawings. It’s all portraits all the time! An interesting aspect of this is that my portraits are all male and Andrew’s are female. I do believe that’s a sign for me to get on the female track… and I plan to do so by having a lovely friend model for me. She has glorious strawberry blonde wavy hair and a sweet fair complexion. I can’t wait to get started.

For the paint-in, I was caught a bit off guard by being accepted to the Sooke show because it means I won’t have my sculptures with me and I indicated that I’d be doing a small-scale portrait sculpture as demo activity. This year I’ll learn from last year and scale down the number of art cards and prints I bring and focus on my ceramic plates and how best to present them. Last year was our first at the paint-in and I was a deer-in-the-headlights. People LOVE to talk about art, so I will focus on this social aspect and doing a little demo rather than standing there catching flies with my mouth open in awe. Awe of how many people there are walking by (and dogs!), how happy everyone is and whether or not people like my work! I will relax. I promise. 🙂

Both shows are an awesome chance to see how many talented artists there are on the island, view some amazing work (and appreciate those who are still growing in to their art) and to interact with not just the artists but patrons who love to talk art.